


Catalyst

by solona



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Aggressive Female Mage Hawke, Aggressive Hawke, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Childhood, Drabbles, Dragon Age II Spoilers, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Freeform, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Gen, Headcanon, Into Dragon Age: Inquisition, Past Relationship(s), Post-Dragon Age II, Pre-Dragon Age II, Prompts Accepted, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rivalry, Sexual Content, Snapshots, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:58:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2045124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solona/pseuds/solona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of Katia Hawke; Ferelden refugee, warmage, Champion of Kirkwall, and fugitive, explored from early childhood to her life after the events of Dragon Age II. The chapters, for the most part, will be small vignettes and drabbles. In-game timelines and the progression of relationships have been altered to better suit the characters and plot of Catalyst. Minimal characters have been added to the story, and will have no real effect on the in-game plot. Each chapter will have its own description and warnings.</p><p>This is a mixture of canon and not-so-canon characters and events. The story will cover Hawke's life before Kirkwall (think along the lines of Lothering and such) all the way though the plot of DAII, filling in the rather ambiguous ending and leading into a new story arc entirely, entering into Dragon Age: Inquisition's story and beyond. Spoilers and head-canon alike will be as common as spontaneous ambushes in Lowtown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The birth of Malcolm and Leandra Hawke's children. No warnings apply, though the death of a newborn is mentioned.

Leandra would never known pain as she had endured during the birth of her first child. Holed up in the small shack- a hovel really- that Malcolm had purchased with the little coin he had to his name, the Hawkes prepared for the fight of their lives. Their first child, a small thing with wisps of her father’s dark hair and inky bottle-green eyes to match, came into the world with a symphony of her mother's screams and the torrent of yet another Ferelden storm that would eventually leak though the roof to greet the first Hawke child.

The mewling infant was small, impossibly small, in Malcolm’s hands. Drawing in ragged breath, Leandra took her child from her husband, grinning like a fool at the resemblance between the two. The new father sat beside his wife, pressing a kiss to her sweat-dampened forehead, fingers slicking aside the soft honey-brown stands plastered to Leandra’s skin. “Lets hope she takes after you, love,” his chest rumbled against her with his words.

The runaway noble woman couldn't help but chuckle in the arms of her apostate husband, the infant she had bleed countless hours for squirming in her arms. “Look at her, Malcolm. She’ll prove to be exactly like you in every way just to spite us.” 

 

* * *

 

Katia Hawke was barley into her second winter when her brother was born. She did not understand why Mama looked so grey, in the days following, keeping to her bed. She did not eat, not for days, and when she finally gave into Papa's pleading, it was only a small trickle of soup poured down cracked and parted lips before her mother turned her face into his shoulder, whole body shaking.

She did not understand why what had been nine months of excitement had turned into weeks pressed under the weight of her parents' silent grief. What she knew of death came from the Mama's Chantry stories of the Maker's side and the Golden City, not of the little lives taken far too young and those left behind.

At two years of age, she was too young to understand what had become of her new brother, only that his name had been Garrett for all of two days.

 

* * *

They were ready the next time, when the twins arrived a little over a year later.

Safely in the Hawke family's new home, the midwife had Katia hold her mother’s hand for luck. Mama squeezed until the little girl’s teeth clamped down upon her bottom lip to keep her eyes from stinging and the cry of pain buried beneath her tongue, but she kept still and took the crush of her mother's grip without protest. Mama needed her to be strong; her brother and sister would need her to be strong.

The twins entered the world minuets apart. They were small and wrinkled, seemingly dried up, and the incessant wailing was without mercy or match. But mama smiled all the same, checks quickly growing wet when the two newest Hawkes found their place in her outstretched arms, her eldest’s hand quickly forgotten.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Infant mortality, especially in a poor household with no real aid, would be not only incredibly probable, but almost guaranteed to happen at least once. 
> 
> Now that that is out of the way, thank you for reading. Updates should be fast and regular, seeing as the majority of this is written. Enjoy.


	2. Metal Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A six year old Hawke tries to make sense of templars and the threat they pose to her family. This is a very short drabble exploring a child's view of templars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings apply.

She often watched them. She knew she shouldn’t, but she didn’t know why.

At six years of age, and with no real knowledge of the power that would one day make her name more legend then fact, Katia Hawke saw only men in shiny armor, wearing something akin to a bucket over their heads. She knew that Papa made her promise to keep out of their sight, but the Chantry liked them, and Mama liked the Chantry. So they couldn't be all that bad, could they? After all, Mages and Templars was a favorite game amongst the Hawke children.

And to a child unaware of the power that would one day earn her the respect, love, and hatred of an entire city-state, life was simply that: a game.

 

 


	3. Knots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No warnings apply. Malcolm fails miserably at both disciplining his children and fixing his daughter's hair.

“Mama! No!” The child fussed, tugging free from her mother’s grasp. Leandra huffed, hands on her hips in exasperation, the comb still in her grasp. “If you won't let me brush your hair we’ll have to cut it all off. I swear to the Maker, I will not have my daughter running about looking like a wild mabari!” 

This incited a series of barks and growls from the offending child. Her dark eyes glinted in the dust-filtered light of the two-room home, clearly quite content with the comparison. 

Catching the wild mabari before she could break for the door, Malcolm took his daughter by the arms, hefting the girl into his lap. The girl stilled instantly, no longer fussing or fighting off the attempts to tame her wild mane. When it came to their eldest, there was no one Katia listened to more then her father. With a smug grin Malcolm took the comb from Leandra and began to work out the terrible knots their eldest had earned from her latest adventure with the twins. The dark tangle of curls seemed a magnet for all sorts of twigs and leaves. With a chuckle, he remembered his mother’s terrible frustration with his own wild mop of hair. Bethany and Carver were far better off, having favored Leandra’s soft waves over Malcolm’s curls. It would get better as she aged, Maker help them otherwise. As soon as the little pup could properly brush her own hair it would be far more manageable. But now, edging on three days of accumulated knots and tangles with no end in sight, he could only imagine the hell they were in for until then. 

Maker help him, Leandra had been right. His eldest favored him, in both personality and appearance, though, still so young, it was impossible to say if magic had touched her. Of their children, only she inherited his dark eyes. The girl was stubborn and prone to anger, but never one to miss out on a joke. Carver was a close second in that aspect, but Malcolm had an inkling his son’s stubborn and occasionally harsh demeanor was more in emulation of his sister, as opposed to Katia’s natural brash attitude. Bethany, on the opposite side of the spectrum, was sweet as could be. She was gentle and had in inherent kindness about her that was simply impossible to fake, everything Leandra had hoped Katia to be. His youngest daughter had woven everyone around her little finger, even her brother, without even trying.

As Malcolm tugged the knots from the green-eyed girl’s hair, he watched Leandra move on to little Bethany, who gladly let her mother pull her tresses back into a sleek braid. Eyeing his wife’s movements with a look of intent, Malcolm went about mimicking the moves. Divide the hair into three sections. Over, under, over, under… Maker, how did women do this? 

Carver tugged the end of Bethany’s new braid, inciting a yelp from the smaller girl. In retaliation for her little sister, Katia hurled her shoe at her brother, knocking him square in the chest. 

“Kaita!” Leandra scolded, “apologize, right now.” The crying little boy pressed his face into his mother’s shoulder, though Malcolm doubted it had actually hurt him. Defiant as always, Katia said nothing, only glared harder at her brother. “If you won't listen to me, perhaps your father will have better luck,” his wife shot him a pointed look. 

“He _did_ pull Bethany’s hair,” Malcolm started, a bit wary, before making himself busy with his daughter’s hair once more. Andraste's ass, was it _supposed_ to look like this? 

“That doesn’t give her the right to hit him,” his wife countered. He smirked a bit, unable to help himself. _Still as beautiful and spirited as the day we left Kirkwall._  

“You’re right…” he sighed. “Kata…” his voice was stern and cold despite the endearment used, “You know better then to hit your brother like that. Next time go for the face, then he’d really have something to cry about.” He knotted the end of the frightening abomination he had created with a leather cord, releasing the wild mabari to go run outside. It was better for the two to work out their conflicts themselves, anyhow. 

“Malcolm!” 

Such skirmishes were no uncharted territory for the eldest and her younger brother, but through the constant bickering and petty squabbles, he could sense the tight kinship the children had formed. Though still so young, their loyalty to each other was admirable, even to an old man like himself. His children were an odd trio, of that there was little doubt to be had, but they loved each other to no end- and that was enough for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, a big thank you to everyone who has been reading. While this beginning is mainly fluff and not entirely necessary for the actual story arc, the chapters will slowly begin to grow and have more relevant content. The actual Kirkwall/in-game story will not begin for a bit, but stay with me on this. Its coming, I promise. Updates should be relatively quick, seeing as the chapters can be extremely (almost ridiculously so) short. The majority of them are actually already written. In fact, the only reason I have even posted this was because I felt like I had an outrageous amount of my Hawke's story floating around without use.


	4. Malcolm Hawke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke comes into her magic. No warnings apply.

Malcolm had his suspicions about his eldest daughter.

For the longest while, the gut feeling had no base, no reason but for pure paranoia. But then, before either parent could process, it was undeniable. It started out small and simple, nothing at all like the horror stories Malcolm had heard of children coming into their power uncontrollably, lighting the house on fire or freezing the family pet. It was nothing like that, thank the Maker…. But it had started young— younger than most.

It was first easially dismissable, Katia and Carver would be going at each other for the tenth time that eavning and there would be a yelp. Carver would come crying moments later, saying that Katia had zapped him. But children tell tales— And Carver had made a lifelong habit of the dramatics. Still, they grew increasingly distressed, and Malcolm felt a heavy, sickening sense of encroaching doom.

Then, at nearly seven winters, his eldest, skipping rocks with the twins, mastered the art of shameless cheating without even realizing it— or at least, he assumed she was none the wiser.

It was then that Malcolm, watching the children as he and Leandra enjoyed what might have otherwise been a pleasant, perhapse even potentially romantic, time beside the lake, began to see the ever-growing, undeniable pattern and that pit of guilt and dread settled into his stomach to stay. Try as he might, when his eldest skipped her stone all the way across the pond and back with a cheer of triumph, he could no longer deny it: magic had come to claim one of his children.


	5. Carver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No warnings apply.

Carver resented his sister. She was father’s favorite; anyone with half an eye could see it, just as Bethany was Mother’s. Carver was no one special in his household. And now that Kata had come into her magic, father loved her all the more.

Never mind the quick, underhand shocks sent his way when he teased Bethany, trying to goad her into a game of tag. Kata was Father’s prodigy, his legacy, the favorite of his children— Carver knew that: even if Bethany did not, even if Mama denied it. She even looked like their father, Maker help them, as if to lord over Carver’s inadequacy, to the drive the point home.

He would never live up to his father’s expectations, never be the Hawke family legacy, the head of his family. He could only ever be the little brother of Katia Hawke, Bethany Hawke’s twin, the _other_ Hawke child— never just Carver Hawke, never just “Hawke” like their father. When he became a mage that would all change. Then Carver could make a name for himself in his father's eyes and prove to them all that he was just as good. Better, even.

Yet still, somehow, it stung all the same that his eldest sibling paid more attention to his twin. Beneath cruel words exchanged and even crueler jabs made at each other, Carver knew he was dammed to always love Katia. She was his sister, Maker help him. She was mean, yes, and spiteful. But only Because she dealt in tough love and lessons earned, rather then simply learned. Like Father, she was hard to please and even harder to love, but somehow he would manage both.


	6. The View from Lothering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No warnings apply.

Lothering, in essence, was a simple town— if one could be so bold as to call it a “town”— a village perhaps, or rather, a hamlet was a more fitting description. It was, to be kind, a bit too quiet, and with a few too many Templar’s for their taste, but all the same; it quickly grew into a home for the Hawkes. It was a step up from their last cottage outside of Honnleath, that was for certain. Even larger still, than their home in Amaranthine that had barely lasted them the winter. Lothering was simple and quite— everything the Hawke children were not, but they were no strangers to adapting to new surroundings and quickly sinking beneath the surface.

The town was, however, close to the Ferelden Circle of Magi— just a few days travel, in fact. Once in a moon the Templars might stop in the town for the night, escorting an apostate— usually a child of sorts, perhaps a Chasind or Dalish from some part of the Hinterlands— to the Circle. While the possibly always held weight in Malcolm’s mind, it was, arguably, a good reminder for the Hawkes. For the twins even, though still too young to understand. _Be wary of both yourselves and those around you; protect each other, keep watch when they fail to do so._

He remembered vividly the first mage they had seen. A girl no older than nine. It had been, in much a way, a cause of near panic for Malcolm, who’s own daughter— only having just come into her magic at the time— played and scraped with her respective siblings a stones throw away.

She was too young, he thought suddenly, the girl with the templars. _She was too young_. Maker, how long before it was one of his own being stolen away? His heart bled. There were no signs any mistreatment or abuse, not physically or even emotionally— the Knight Captain, as it were, clearly had done a great deal to sooth the child. But there was no kindness in the act of kidnap. In tearing a knee-high girl from her family, her home, all she’d known. It was a cruelty worse than brutality.


	7. Bethany Hawke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No warnings apply.

Bethany could not remember when her sister had first started showing magic. The magic had just always been, in a sense. Even as whelps, running knee-deep though Ferelden mud, when no one could have known magic would reach its blackened fingers down to touch any one of the Hawke children, it had always been there. Beneath her sister’s skin, just barely contained.

There was always something about her: a shift of the wind, a clink of stone beneath their feet, a hum in the air around her—something that was never quite normal about her sister. And she had always had this… this _look_ about her, as if she had been born knowing, born to wield such strange and feral ascendency.

Beside her older sister Bethany had always felt like a travesty, only able to grasp the barest threads of elemental workings, and fumble with a loose grip on the more restorative magics. But Father had grinned all the same, eyes flashing with that pride. Pride, all Bethany's own. The magic was clumsy and loose, but magic all the same. The thing that held such a forbearing, such a stone fist of dread clenched about their hearts, and yet still remained such a crest for the Hawke family. They _were_ magic, and magic was theirs to command— such a foreign thing for the young Hawke.

When Bethany had first shown her magic, in a brief, but all too terrifying display of fire, it had been her sister who had reacted first, delivering a sharp clap on the back so hard the tears gathering had forced themselves back into her eyes, and, with a wolfish grin, a quip about roasting off one of Carver’s eyebrows the next time. And even with the ice of resolution sinking into Hawke family blood, the cottage seemed all the warmer for Bethany’s show of fire.


	8. Leandra Amell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leandra contemplates the losses and the gains in her life. Brief sexual content.

There were nights when the Ferelden cold bit through the eternally waterlogged wood of their patchwork walls, the nights when all the pelts and quilts did nothing to safeguard the noble woman, when she ate the same stew for the fourth night in a row and knew she would be forced to greet it like an old friend the next coming evening.

Those were the nights Leandra bitterly regretted leaving behind her comfortable life for her husband.

But then there were the nights when Malcolm would take Bethany out to the fields to pick flowers, and would return to his wife heavily-laden with blossoms and a grin just for her, when her husband tried his damnedest to teach Carver swordplay so his son wouldn’t fall into the thought that he was something lesser for not having inherited his father’s legacy, or even the nights when the apostate would spirit his eldest away to go muck about in a thunderstorms so that his daughter might better understand her affinity for the primal magics; the nights when Leandra saw just how deeply he cared for their little wayward family.

Or there were nights like these; snuffed out candles, silent movements beneath woolen sheets, and a hushed whisper of _“don’t wake the children!”_ Those were the nights she wouldn’t trade her life for all the riches and luxuries in Thedas, the nights the made everything worth her sacrifice and made her truly believe she was the luckiest woman alive.


End file.
